Tuesday, April 17, 2012

Huzzaah, another embroidery-milestone passed! I have expanded my repertoire of stitches by learning how to do the bullion stitch. There are loads of helpful videos on YouTube (and twice as much unhelpful ones) that teach you how to master this stitch, but the one that I actually understood was a video that shows you how to do Bullion Roses and French Knots that are used to embellish the Bridge of Roses socks by Knitters Brewing Company. Click here to see the video.

Happy knitting, everyone, hope you enjoy the video, I surely found it useful!

Wednesday, April 4, 2012

The wonderful thing about Etsy is how supportive people are. There are a
lot of helpful forums for generic discussions on selling crafts,
supplies and vintage, guides to help newbies get started and loads more.
When ever I've encountered a problem on Etsy, be it pricing, pictures,
new banner etc, I've always found people on the forums extremely helpful
and happy to be of service. I have recieved so much help through the
forums I am myself extremely happy if I can pass on any nuggets of info
to someone else in need.

Yesterday I came across a lovely lady, Terri Richard, in one of the
forums and we soon engaged in a very lengthy conversation about
improving one's photos. Terri lives in Newton, North Carolina and makes
wonderful unique jewelry. Due to her disability she is unable to be in
the workforce, so her Etsy shop, Havenwood is
a good possible source of income for her and her husband Bill (who
judging by the way she talks about him is an angel sent to earth).

After
just a few convo's my heart had warmed up to her, she's a true trooper
and has overcome a lot! In effort to try help her out with her shop I
took one of her pics and thought I'd share how she can improve it in a
matter of seconds. As this is as simple as 1-2-3, I thought I'd share
this nugget with my dear blog readers too. I'm by no means a pro, but
here's a quick tip on how to get your white background even whiter.

Before you start, check if your camera has a "set white balance" function, most cameras do. White balance
(WB) is the process of removing
unrealistic color casts, so that objects which appear white in person
are rendered white in your photo. If you don't and you have a picture
you've taken against a white background but that does not look white on
your photo here's how you can tweak the picture using pixlr, a free
online photo editor.

You will see pretty quickly which way to drag it in order to achieve desired effect.
Don't over-do it, always make sure that the item you have photographed
looks natural. If you can't get the background to desired shade of white
without distorting the other colors, go take a better picture and use
plenty of natural light!

4) Save.

See the difference? It's a small, but significant change, and all in a matter of seconds.